David Threlfall

Available for over a year

As part of the BBC's Opera season, five creative individuals examine their own encounters with opera. These personal essays reveal the variety of ways in which opera can seduce, fascinate, baffle, frustrate and excite. David Threlfall saw his first opera - Zeffirelli's production of La Boheme - in New York in 1980. Since then his relationship with the art-form has suffered a few disappointments. David Threlfall is one of Britain's most admired and versatile character actors. In 1980 he played the role of Smike in the Royal Shakespeare Company's eight-hour stage version of The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, in both London and New York. He has gone on to play a huge range of roles on stage and in film. His most notable television role was as Frank Gallagher in Paul Abbott's Channel 4 drama Shameless which ran from 2004 to 2013. He is next on screen in the BBC/Netflix drama Troy - Fall of a City, in which he plays King Priam.